Research Blog : health, medicine

November is National Diabetes Month

SuDocQueen@evpl — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:07:00 GMT

Considering the prevalance of diabetes in America today, I suspect the disease has touched many, many families in the Evansville and tri-state area. It is certainly a topic near and dear to my heart since I have had family members and friends afflicted with both Type 1 and Type II. For those who have never encountered diabetes, or those newly diagnosed, it can be a frightening disease. So what better time to learn more about the disease than during the month dedicated to it?

To be honest, it had slipped my mind that November was National Diabetes Month until I got an email update from www.usa.gov talking about it -- check out www.usa.gov's website to find out about all the great email updates and RSS feeds people can sign-up for. The email included a great link to their FAQ section on diabetes. That section in turn offers several ways to get information on diabetes. They include phone, address, and email for the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse as well as several links for different websites like National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse, National Diabetes Education Program, and the American Diabetes Association.

You can find even more online information from www.usa.gov by browsing or keyword searching from the website's main page. To browse, scroll down the main page until you see "Health and Nutrition." Clicking will take you to a further breakdown of the subject. Scroll down to "Health Topics A-Z" and click. Then click on "D" and scroll down until you get to "Diabetes." You'll see about twelve different topics on diabetes from diabetes and pregnancy to diabetic diet, kidney problems or even nerve problems. Each topic leads to great information from Medline Plus that includes additional links on things like prevention, related issues, and research as well as links to videos, tutorials, and pictures where available.

You can also do a keyword search on diabetes by typing the term into the search box at the top of www.usa.gov's main screen. You'll get a results page reminiscent of Google but without all the extraneous hits from questionable websites. The neatest part of the results page is the topic breakdown on the left-hand side of the page. The topic list is a breakdown of the search results into individual topics. The numbers in parenthesis indicate how many hits your search had under that topic, and the plus button to the right indicates that the topic can be broken down even farther. Clicking on the plus button will show that further breakdown while clicking on the topic itself will change the results list to the hits for just that topic. Also, take a look at the Agencies breakdown. If you didn't know, www.usa.gov searches state as well as federal websites. Looking at "Agencies" will give you a concise picture of the places your results are coming from. For example my "diabetes" search showed that the majority of my results came from the National Institutes of Health, but if you click to see "All" results for Agencies, you can scroll down and discover that Indiana has a page on diabetes coming from the IHS Division of Diabetes Treatment and Prevention.

If you're not on information overload yet, or if you prefer your information in a more tangible format, EVPL has an amazing collection of print material on diabetes ranging from books on the disease, complications, and diet to cookbooks for the diabetic. My simple keyword search using the term diabetes then limiting to books turned up over 400 books. Or, if you'd like to see magazine articles you can go back to the computer, go to our databases, and select a general database like Masterfile Premier, (see it under our list of "Popular Databases" or find it through our "Alphabetical Sequence") and do a keyword search for articles on diabetes. You can also choose "Category Sequence" and click on Health and Medicine to see a list of databases that will narrow your search to just medical journals.

Swine flu information

googler@evpl — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:21:00 GMT

Most of what you need to know about the current swine flu situation can be found on two websites. The Centers for Disease Control manages this site, which has all the latest news, information about the disease's symptoms and prevention, and links to other sources. The Department of Health and Human Services manages this site, also packed full of useful information (including historical information on flu epidemics).

Both sites have RSS feeds linked on their sites, and you can find their Twitter feeds under BirdFluGov (despite the account name, it does include swine flu information) and CDCemergency.

For the latest news stories, another Twitter feed is the San Jose Mercury News, which maintains a feed specifically for swine flu stories. (For a general news feed with plenty of flu updates, I use Breaking News.)

You may be interested in the swine flu outbreak map, a Google Maps mashup. This purports to show every known instance of swine flu around the world (of the current outbreak). The map also provides information on the current state of the ill person.

Even for those who don't live in New York, the New York State Department of Health has a very informative site on swine flu. And finally, you might want to keep an eye on the Indiana Department of Health's website.

Natasha's lesson saves Ohio girl

googler@evpl — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:02:00 GMT

Natasha Richardson's recent death from a head injury may have you asking yourself, when does a head injury require medical attention? That's a very good question. This article, about a seven-year-old girl who experienced an epidural hematoma but had no symptoms for two days, gives a list of what to watch for after someone has suffered a head injury. Symptoms such as dizziness, vomiting, headache and confusion, and sudden changes in symptoms, are the red flags.

And you'll also be happy to know that the little's girls parents, alerted to the dangers of head injury by a news report about Natasha, were able to get her to a doctor in time, and she's fine now.